The Strengths and the Weakness of Contextual Teaching Learning

b. Experiencing. Learning focused on the exploration, discovery, and invention.

c. Applying. Learning should be presented into the context of useful.

d. Cooperating. Learning through the context of interpersonal communication

context, togetherness, etc. e. Transferring. Learning through the use of knowledge in the situation or new context. Consequently, for Contextual Teaching Learning to be effective, all strategies above must be present in the teaching learning process. A teacher should integrate with other commonly accepted good teaching practices. These other practices include promoting self- regulated learning, addressing student diversity when teaching, designing authentic assessment and using questioning to develop higher order thinking skills.

5. The Strengths and the Weakness of Contextual Teaching Learning

Contextual Teaching Learning is one of the hot topics in education these days. As an approach, Contextual Teaching Learning has the strength and weaknesses in the process of teaching and learning. For the strength, it make teacher who teach contextually become easier to reach the goal of teaching learning process. According to Johnson, “The great power of Contextual Teaching Learning is that it gives all young opportunity to develop their promise, to develop their talents, and to become informed, capable members of a democratic society.” 27 Based on that explanation, Contextual Teaching Learning can develop students’ communication skill and increase students’ comprehension about current issues which are related to their live. On the other hand, the weakness of Contextual Teaching Learning is taking time for the preparation; in preparing the lesson plan, teacher should recognize students’ diversity and then utilize difference to create a rich learning 27 Elaine B. Johnson, Contextual Teaching Learning: what it is and why it’s here to stay, United State of America: Corwin Press, Inc., 2002, p. 18 environment. Besides, the authentic assessment also takes more time for the teachers to develop and apply.

C. Teaching Simple Past Tense Through Contextual Teaching Learning

Before the implementation of Contextual Teaching Learning in teaching learning process, the writer prepares the suitable material. Preparing the suitable material has to do by the writer in order the teaching learning process run well successfully. In this sense, the writer prepares the material related to the contextual teaching and learning approach. When teacher apply Contextual Teaching Learning in the classroom, it must include the main component of Contextual Teaching Learning. Here, the following are steps in teaching simple past through Contextual Teaching and Learning. 28 a. Preliminary activities • Ask students related to their condition b. Presentation • Explain about the concept of simple past tense. • Divide students into group of ten • Give each student a verb in the past tense ‘visited’ or ‘played’ or ‘studied’ • Asked students to make the sentence based on the activity that they have done yesterday. • Start a simple chain of events with the sentence. For example: Yesterday I visited my grandma and I played with my nephew… The first student continues, repeating the sentence but adding a further clause including his or her verb: 28 Dr. Wina Sanjaya, M.Pd, Pembelajaran dalam Implementasi Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetensi, Jakarta: Kencana, 2009, p. 124.